Baking doesn’t have to be this way. Even a flour-dodger like me has a great deal of admiration for those who are pushing the boundaries of what you can do with a bit of Battenberg. I watch the Food Channel show Charm City Cakes and marvel at what can be done with icing sugar, imagination, some sponge and a few wooden struts. Then there’s the evil genius of British creative Miss Cakehead, a PR and events expert turned Dr Frankenstein offondant. She provides cakes for big-name clients that are more Nightmare on Elm Street than I Dream of Jeannie. “I want to challenge the medium – with cake you can get away with anything,” she says, while telling me about how to decorate a cake to make it look blood-spattered, as well as the edible beach she’s working on for this year’s Cake and Bake Show in September. “We made an edible autopsy out of cake and got a pathologist to come in and dissect it.” That’s my kind of cake making. She is also no fan of the all-conquering cupcake, either. “There was a horrendous outbreak of cupcakes suddenly becoming so trendy – about five years ago. They’re the equivalent of painting by numbers compared with Peter Blake.